Foreword
Good afternoon members of the forum. As you already guessed from the title there is my way of the creating plugins in this tutorial. To be precise, I tell you how I make my works starting from my tools and finishing with advices and secrets. Throughout the tutorial I will mention other articles and it's necessary to explore it. This information will be in special places "secrets" to avoid lengthening the text.
I will divide the whole article into several sections, each of which will have a detailed tutorial on creating something. I hope you will be so comfortable

My work program is Photoshop CS5. I recommend it to everyone because it really convenient thing including all functions of photo editors. Moreover, it is conditionally free ...(torrents for help).
Canvas settings don't matter. In order to draw in pixels it's enough to scale the background 8 times and use the pencil.
To create the plugin in the beginning I advise you to download all necessary elements to your computer. I mean textures of cars, trees, tiles and etc.viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2964viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2346
Unfortunately the trees and tiles I did not find, but you can download mine, on my google disk or cut them from the game.

Part 2. Drawing a sketch

I'm using this building for example what and how I make. You can download it hereviewtopic.php?f=63&t=3969
We are determining with an approximate plugin size and downloading desired fields hereviewtopic.php?f=41&t=2290
Opening the downloaded file in the program. Making a new layer and drawing. Before you start drawing you should have the image of the building. Also you should look at real buildings.
For example, if you want to draw residential complex:- you look at photos of residential complex and on their basis you make something yours
- you use some building as a sample
- you use a references

So, I'm drawing an approximate shape of future building. I have the image of the desired one in my head. It will be better if you draw it on a paper, it will facilitate your work.

I used some schematic colors in the screenshot this is so as not to get confused in the lines. I also divided the buildings into floors. Good floors are 4-5 pixels of emptiness between ones.

Part 3. "A texturing".

So, we have a shape. Now we need to paint the walls, balconies, etc. I used the wall of the building for the roof.

I cut useless parts and fit picture to my building. You can reduce or increase it, that depends on your preferences. The same thing I made with walls but it hasn't shown here

As for balconies I took suitable for walls color, but it is also question of your taste.

Part 4. A Detailing.

Now we drawing windows, doors and etc. I recommend to draw it like in a original version, that is, to imitate the game. All the same, we adapt to it style.
Next we're completely breaking the sketch we're painting over it with light and dark lines like hereviewtopic.php?f=41&t=2290
After this action we are more or less getting rid of cartoonishness of our building.

There are some frames from my work.

Part 5. Building design.

Next, we're adding new outlines to our shape. As I said at the beginning the shape wasn't everything. You are making cutouts, lugs, everything you think is necessary to composition complication.
I made crooked roofs and add a shingles. Also there is Park-zone on the roof for beauty and giving elite level to building. There are work details on the screenshot.

Part 6. Landscape Design.

This is a matter of your imagination. And again, photos of real landscape design can help you.
Zone marking

Detailing the environment: lawn, trees, lights, road markings.

Part 7. Shadows and lighting.

It is, in part, the most common error among beginners. Somebody just forget about it, somebody do it wrong. As always, we start carelessly almost like here.

Next we're removing unnecessary, start to draw details, we notice where shadows are needed and where are not. It's easy, it depends on the side of the building.The one in the center would be the base color, the side to the left would be whitened 20%, and the side to the right would be blackened 20%.
But I'm not use light, and shadow blackened 30%

In fact, you can finish this but...

Part 8: Reflexes and depth
In my time the teacher (Oh, Omnipotent Internet) told me to do reflexes and I recommend it to you either. Briefly, reflexe is a reflection from another surface on your building. For example, it is beam of light on a large glass surface.

You can not do this because it isn't particularly practiced in the game. It's just so you know. But do not overdo it.

Conclusion

So we came to the end of this tutorial. The final result of the work you can see by reference.
I hope I helped you at least I answered some questions that were asked of me.

Section 2: Creating a treesSection 2: Creating a treesArticle without division into parts

If you read the previous tutorial, you already know that the easiest way to create a plugin is to use some textures from real life.
As before, take the Google search bar and find there "png trees". Selecting a sufficient number of different trees.

We take one of them and insert it into the program. We reduce to a certain size, preferably up to the size of the original trees. Yes, now we have a very blurry image of the "tree".

The task is to repeat the same form, but to make the image as clear as possible. In this case, your palette depends on the color of the foliage on the tree. You take the brightest color and paint it where the light should fall. Take the darkest and draw them where there should be a shadow. Nothing complicated.

You can compare photos before and after. At the very beginning the image was incomprehensible, it was smeared. Besides his flowers, there were too many of them. You can look at the original trees and notice that they do not have such smooth transitions and such a color scheme.
The task is to make the plugin similar to the original trees, on drawing technique (this does not mean that you do not have to have your own style).
Many people also use images from the Internet, but do not edit them, or simply do not know how to do it. This is noticeable in quality, it is immediately evident that the work was simply loaded. Therefore, I advise you to follow certain details from the game.
This is basically everything. I made another tree of the same type ...

... and also offer to see a few more of my works, perhaps not so successful because of the excess of shadows, but still they should be shown at least for an example of "how not to do."

Of course this work does not work for absolutely everything. For example it will be very difficult to paint palm trees like this. Ie it will be easier to face on the image and draw its shape

......
I will leave all links below again ( it is important to know).
Thanks for your attention. I didn't write such big posts for a long time. If you have a questions, wishes or criticism I will gladly read this in the comments.

I do not understand what you mean. Checked the article from three browsers (TOR too). I do not have such a problem. If there is someone else, I'm waiting for feedback. I'll try to find another server for photos

Attachments

Last edited by actemendes on Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:54, edited 1 time in total.

Do not bend under a volatile world,One day he will bend under us.Theo of tomorrow in developing.

Nice tutorial indeed!!! but how do you make those awesome trees?? It looks different with theo's trees..

Trees ... I can not show it visually now. However, I can add an image to this post later.
In the fifth part you can see how I made the "green wall". I cut out a foliage sheet from another image, then removed the blur and made the color gamma smaller so that it did not look like a copy of a real bush.
In general, I did them based on real trees
(However it is worth noting that I overdo it with shadows on them)

Upd:@Barky
Any permanent creativity gives me pleasure.
I would not mind, but now my work is just to show that I can

Do not bend under a volatile world,One day he will bend under us.Theo of tomorrow in developing.

Nice tutorial indeed!!! but how do you make those awesome trees?? It looks different with theo's trees..

Trees ... I can not show it visually now. However, I can add an image to this post later.
In the fifth part you can see how I made the "green wall". I cut out a foliage sheet from another image, then removed the blur and made the color gamma smaller so that it did not look like a copy of a real bush.
In general, I did them based on real trees
(However it is worth noting that I overdo it with shadows on them)

Upd:
@Barky
Any permanent creativity gives me pleasure.
I would not mind, but now my work is just to show that I can

I thought you could look for it in your search(because i live in other country and our search requests can be different. As I wrote, torrents help. However, I still have a link from where I downloaded it myself linkhttps://rg-mechanics.org/torrent/soft/g ... 64-1-0-267.
I think you should configure the program yourself, since it will be more convenient for youLittle advice
Could you write your posts in one post, or edit the old one, if no one answered it. Not that it is critical, but it will be more convenient to read

Do not bend under a volatile world,One day he will bend under us.Theo of tomorrow in developing.